War of the Gods

by Poul Anderson

  Hadding and Ragnhild bided through that winter in Nidaros. He wanted to talk at length with King Haakon and other high-standing men. They made plans, swore oaths, and bound themselves strongly to each other against any common foe. Thus after his losses in war he regained much.

  Near the turning of the year, a thing happened stranger than aught that men had ever heard of.

  The evening meal in the great hall had been early, as short as the days at this season were. Darkness had fallen outside. Fires, lamps, and rushlights cast a ruddy glow, but shadows were everywhere, uneasy, black above the crossbeams, misshapen upon the walls. Servants went to and fro with drink. Along the seats, rings, pins, brooches, and necklaces gleamed athwart the richness of furs and brocade on the well-born men, their ladies, and the warriors. Talk and laughter rolled like surf. The very hounds lolling on the floor were as cheerful.

  Hadding and Ragnhild sat in the honor seat, across from her father and his wife in the high seat. Between these pairs a fire burned on its hearthstone. Though the newlyweds kept the bearing that behooved their rank, now and then they glanced at one another and smiled.

  Then without warning or sound, before them near the hearth a head came out of the floor. It rose until half a woman’s body was there. They could not see whether she had the uncovered hair of a maiden or wore the kerchief of a wife, for a hooded blue cloak darkened sight of her face. But she seemed to be tall and gaunt. What showed of her dress sheened ghostly. Her arms held up her front apron panel. In it lay a sheaf of hemlocks with green leaves and white flower heads.

  A roar went up. Men sprang to their feet. None moved farther. They stared, stiff and daunted. As cries died away, hard breathing rasped through the fire-crackle. Hounds that had hunted wild boar cringed back. One howled.

  Hadding stood lynx-taut. The woman’s head turned. Her eyes found his. For a span they two were thus frozen, and stillness deepened throughout the hall. She showed the hemlocks forth to him as if she asked where in the world such fresh herbs might grow at the dead of winter.

  He made a step toward her. “She beckons me,” he mumbled. Ragnhild gripped his arm. He shook her off and moved on over the strewn rushes. Afterward he said he felt himself adream, bound off with no thought of doing otherwise. Yet he knew by every red glimmer of firelight, whiff of smoke, rustle underfoot, that this was real.

  “Yes,” he said aloud, his look never leaving the woman’s, “I would like to know.”

  Helpless, Ragnhild saw him reach her. She rose up fully; her height matching his, and cast her cloak about than both. They sank from sight. The floor there bore no mark of having been touched.

  He came to rest in thick gloom. Fog swirled cold. Unseen, the woman nudged his elbow. At that slight urging, he walked forward beside her. She strode as if they were not blinded. He• thrust aside fear of stumbling and kept beside her. Their footfalls sounded hollow.

  It seemed to him that they went a long way, slowly downward, before the mist thinned out. When they were clear of it, he found himself under a gray overcast. Dull light seeped across a waste of rocks. Air lay windless, without heat or cold. The path they were on was dry but deeply worn. He thought that many feet must have trodden it before him.

  Still she walked unspeaking. He thought he had better not say anything either. Stealing a look at her, he saw a bony face, unsmiling, ivory white, as if she had never been out beneath the sun. She herself always gazed straight ahead.

  He knew not how much longer they had gone, for he had lost feeling for time or span, when he came in sight of some men standing near the wayside. They were very big, handsome, magnificently clad in red and purple. Golden shone the rings on their arms and the brooches at the breasts, even in this dreary light; and the head of the spear that one held gleamed steely blue. Another gripped a heavy, short-handled hammer. A sword hung at the hip of a third, who was missing his right hand. A fourth held a sickle. A fifth had a bow and quiver on his back. A sixth clasped a harp. Slung from the shoulder of the seventh was a horn like the horn of a huge ram; his skin was the whitest, his hair the fairest, and his cloak was banded like the rainbow.

  They did not watch the wayfarers, but Hadding felt they must be aware of him. Nor did the woman halt. Still she led him onward.

  Boulders and rubble yielded to grassy soil. The gray overhead went blue, though no sun was in it. Warmth breathed forth. The smell it awakened became harsh, for the way passed through a meadow full of hemlock like that which the woman bore. She tossed hers aside. Hadding thought it had served the end of bringing him underground. He remembered that hemlock is deadly. It came to him that somebody wanted him to see what no living man ever had seen. He could not think why. Dreamlike, his way took him on.

  After another long while a noise of rushing water waxed ahead. A ringing and clatter went through it. Ever louder it grew, until the woman and Hadding reached the bank of a mighty river. Leaden-hued, it flowed as swiftly as if it were plunging straight down to the bottom of the world. Weapons floated crowdingly upon it, swords, spears, axes, whirling, tumbling, banging together as the stream bore them away. The water roared deafening. The spray that flew up made a mist wherein the daylike light was lost. Where it struck skin, the cold of it stung like an adder’s bite.

  A bridge crossed it. The woman beckoned and trod onto that narrow span. Hadding could not but follow. It swayed and shuddered beneath him. Often he nearly fell. Only the quickness he had learned in woods and war saved him.

  Beyond the bridge of dread stretched a plain of sallow grass and a few crooked trees. As the sound of the river fell behind him, Hadding’s ears caught another racket rising frontward. The hair stirred all over his body. He knew that din.

  Onward walking, he saw the wellspring of it come over the dim edge of sight and grow clear. Two hosts fought in battle. Weapons clashed, blood reddened byrnies and earth, the wounded sank down under swaying banners and the feet of the hale crushed them, the slain sprawled gaping.

  Hadding jarred to a halt. Words tore from him. “What fray is this?”

  The woman stopped too. For the first time on their trek she looked again into his eyes. Her voice was low, a sigh like the wind at night. “These are the men who died by the sword, who here wage ever a shadow strife and fell each other, so that their deeds are a glimmer of what they wrought when they lived.”

  She turned and went on. The fight was slow to fall away behind them. Meanwhile Hadding gave scant heed to the land around. It was a heath, utterly empty Light waned until they fared in dusk, chill, and stillness.

  At last he began to make out something else. Drawing near, he saw it was a high stone wall. From end to end of sight it stretched across the rutted road. He spied no gateway, nor could he see over the top. On a boulder nearby perched a red cock. Otherwise there were only the whins and ling of the waste.

  “We must try to get over this,” said the woman.

  Hadding felt of the stones. They were smoothed and closely fitted, with neither handhold nor foothold. “I know not how,” he said.

  “Some few have overleaped it,” said the woman.

  She withdrew, crouched, and broke into a run. Arrow-swift she sped, and at the end gave a mighty spring. Her cloak and skirts flapped with the speed. Nonetheless she did not reach the top, but fell back, landing catlike on her feet.

  Again she walked off. Her shape went misty. Renewed, she was small and light. Now she bounded higher still, but once more failed.

  She made herself tall again. “No,” she said grimly, “this is not in your weird. Yet shall you ken something of what lies beyond.”

  She went over to the cock and laid hold of him, wings and legs caught in her left hand. Her right closed on his neck. With one twist, she tore his head off.

  Blood spattered, none of it on her. She swung the body around. Plumes streamed. She let it go and it soared over the wall. After it she cast the head.

  From the other side, Hadding heard the cock crow.

  All at once the woman se
emed weary. “Enough,” she said, and started back the way they had come.

  So did Hadding return to the world of the living. He passed up through the floor of Haakon’s hall and stood there before Ragnhild. She fell into his arms. Folk told him he had been gone for only a few breaths.

  XXII

  Had the thing happened to anyone else, he might there after have been shunned. Enough eeriness was already bound to the name of Hadding that this raised no fear of him. However, it was seldom talked about. One would rather keep on thinking of him as a hero who was also a likeable human, and get back to everyday matters—which was his own heartiest wish.

  By spring Ragnhild was great with child. Nevertheless she went eagerly aboard Fired rake when her husband left for home. First he rigged a small tent that could be raised when she and her one tirewoman needed freedom from men’s, eyes. Other times she was in the open with him.

  Heads thumped somewhat after the farewell feast King Haakon gave. Sea breezes cleared them, and Hadding’s warriors brought their lord south toward Denmark.

  Wind blew strongly, waves rushed high and green under flights of ragged clouds, on a day when they were passing the steep cliffs of Sogn. Out from a fjord glided three longships. Iron flashed aboard them. Today was no weather for rowing on open waters. Their crews drew oars in and bent sail to masts already raised. Swiftly they plunged to cut off Hadding’s lone craft.

  “I hardly think they’re friendly,” growled Gunnar as he peered against the sea-blink. “They’ve lain in wait for prey to come by.”

  Hadding shook his head. “It’s early in the season,” he said. “No traders are yet out along these shores. Nor would vikings likely go after a ship of war like ours. I wonder if King Uffi has not sent them to lurk for me.”

  “Well, we’d better busk ourselves. We’ll win. None of their hulls is like to ours for size, and they’ll find that none of them are like to us for battle.”

  Again Hadding shook his head. “I’ll not risk my wife and unborn child unless I must.” He called on the most skilled seamen to stand by at the sheets and sail-pole. The strongest he told to man oars if need be. The rest were to take weapons and mail but then keep out of the way. Himself he went aft to the helm.

  From beneath Ragnhild’s kerchief, stray locks fluttered in the wind like flame. She gripped a bow and had slung a quiverful of arrows on her back. “Let them draw nigh and they’ll learn what the upland deer learned!” she cried.

  Hadding laughed. “Let’s see if we can spare them,” he said.

  Thereafter he steered. Gauging wind and seas, shouting orders, working the tiller with the strength of a wisent and the cunning of a wolf, he became the soul of the ship.

  Rigging thrummed, timbers creaked, wind shrilled, billows crashed. Again and again Firedrake lay nearly on her beam ends. Again and again spray burst white and bitter at the prow. Her hull swayed, swung, bounded, athrob with the surges she rode and clove. The yard rattled, the sail slatted each time she came about. Yet never a wave did she take. Hadding used the sea as he used the wind.

  No steersman among the foe could point that close. Twice, those who tried almost swamped their vessels, which then rolled sluggishly till the crews got them bailed out. Once the Danes were past the spot where the strangers had aimed to meet them, they drew ever farther away. They whooped for glee.

  Hadding sailed thus until well after the foe had dropped from sight. He said he wanted to make sure of not being overtaken, should the wind fail. Ragnhild smiled. “I think you’re having too much fun to stop,” she told him. Something flickered across her face. She looked elsewhere. “Yes,” she whispered, “there’s more joy for you in this than I can give you, or any woman.”

  Still, she went gladly with him into his home and set about making it hers.

  A while afterward she was brought to bed. As wont was, nobody stayed with her in the women’s bower but the midwife. Hadding feasted in the hall with his housecarles and guests. Noise, fire, and merriment helped frighten evil beings off.

  The midwife came in at last. “It went hard, lord,” she told him. “The queen is slim in the hips. But she rests now. Behold your son.”

  She stooped down, unrolled the blanket in which she had swaddled the bairn, and laid him on it at the king’s feet. Hadding waved other men back and looked close. Small, red, the newborn kicked and cried lustily. The father took him up onto his knees. So did he acknowledge that the child was sound and would be kept alive. Cheers thundered.

  The midwife returned the bairn to his mother. Hadding followed. Ragnhild lay white and haggard, but she cast him a fighter’s grin. “You did well,” he said.

  Back in the hall, he told them there that the queen was wearied and had lost much blood, but ought to regain strength in time. Now let them be as happy as he was.

  “I will,” murmured Gyda. “For this little time! have you.”

  Great was the naming feast a few days later. Hadding poured water on the babe’s head and dubbed him Frodi. That surprised some. He had already honored his forebears by naming his offspring by other women for them, but men had not thought he would call his queen-born son “wise.” When Eirik Jarl asked why, the father smiled. “I’m doing what I can to help him grow up wise,” he said. “The warlikeness he can make for himself.”

  He waited until Ragnhild was healed before he made his rounds of the kingdom. She kept the hall at Haven for him, nursed Frodi, and ran things with a stern hand. When his faring was done, she greeted him lovingly, but her womb was slow to open again. So did that year pass in Denmark.

  It was otherwise in Svithjod. Word drifted in from Norway of how Hadding had slain the giant, wedded King Haakon’s daughter, and sworn fellowship with the Nidering and neighboring lords. Later came hearsay less clear, about one who had sought him out from beyond the world of men. All this made ever more folk think there must be something wonderful about him. The offering to Freyr that he had founded spread north from Scania to the holy shaw at Uppsala itself. Yeomen muttered that it would be madness to fight him. Their chieftains began to say it aloud.

  “Best we make terms,” urged King Uffi’s younger brother, Hunding. “Denmark is rich and mighty. We ought to gain as much from friendship as we give, or more.”

  “Never while I live and that hound befouls the earth,” snarled Uffi. “Our father would groan in his howe.”

  “I think not. It’s no shame to make peace with a worthy foe. Surely it’s better than for him to overrun us. He may well seek to do that, once he’s rebuilt what he lost. Yet I have a feeling that if we give him no grounds to strike at us, he would rather not.”

  “What thrall-blood sneaked into ours, that you speak well of such a one?” rasped Uffi, and stormed from the room where they were.

  But he understood that outright war would be rash and might be wreckful. Through the long nights of winter he brooded. His hatred stewed in him like the brew in a witch’s kettle. Slowly he thought out what could be done.

  He had a daughter, Arnborg, a maiden of fourteen years, already very fair. Toward spring Uffi made known that whoever slew Hadding should get her to wife, along with great gifts, broad acres, and high standing in the kingdom.

  Word buzzed about. Some bold seamen took ship for Norway to waylay the Dane-king, but he outsailed them. Later on, Uffi heard that Hadding had been told of his offer, and had laughed. Uffi took an ax, went to his stables, killed a horse with one blow, and hacked it to shreds.

  Next year Thuning the Finnfarer came to him. This was a Norseman from the Westfjord, up beyond the land of the Niderings. Though a chieftain with holdings in the Lofoten Islands and the nearby mainland, in those bleak parts he had few folk under him, mostly fishers. He had taken to trade, sailing north around the end of Finnmark and onward. From there he freighted walrus leather, ivory, furs, and thralls to marts in southerly shires. When he must fight, he handily won. Otherwise he worked shrewdly and learned deeply.

  To Uffi he said, “I can take King Hadding out of h
is days if you will lend me what I need.”

  “What is that?” asked Uffi.

  “A fleet of ships for hundreds of men, with crews and outfits for a long voyage. If any Swedish warriors would like to come along, they’ll be welcome, but mainly I’ll raise my own host. I’ll bring you Hadding’s head, or at least news of his downfall. I’ll bring plunder as well, reaved in Denmark when he is no more. And you will give me your Arnborg.”

  Uffi looked at him. Thuning was a sturdy man, but fat and not overly clean. Lice could be seen hopping in the thin strands of his hair. His beard fell matted from his jowls down his chest. A sour smell hung around him. The girl would not be glad if he won her. However, he promised an end to Hadding.

  “Where will your men come from?” Uffi asked.

  “From among the Bjarmians, who dwell along the White Sea,” Thuning said. “Their tribes are poor and wild, but fearless. I’ve gotten to know them well, and can tell you that they’ll flock to me. Iron tools and weapons are worth more to them than gold, so you and I will take our share of my loot in costlier things.”

  Uffi frowned. “We’ve long laid toll on Finns like those, because we have better arms and more skill in their use.”

  “True. Yet I can bring more fighters against Hadding than he’ll reckon on, if you’ll lend me the ships to carry them.”

  Uffi nodded. “Yes, he won’t likely hear osier than that some kind of fleet is bound his way, and think he can drive it off with his housecarles and neighborhood levies.” His frown became a scowl. “However many your followers, he may well be right, too. Man for man, his warriors will be better. And uncanny powers seem to hover about him.”

  “I know,” said Thuning: “But you must have heard, lord, that the Bjarmians breed warlocks more cunning than even among other Finns. Often have I bought a bag of favoring winds from one. And I have seen greater works done yonder, fruitful or frightful. Help me as I wish, and I will set black witchcraft against his luck. It will overwhelm him.”